Senior nuclear scientist M R Srinivasan, welcoming the agreement reached between India and the US in the nuclear power field Sunday, said the challenge now is on discussions on the cost of the plants to be imported from the US.

Due to liability issues, the cost of units 3 and 4 of Kudankulam Nuclear Power Plant has shot up to Rs 39,747 crore, more than twice the cost of units 1 and 2, which will lead to an increase in per unit cost of power.

The Kudankulam Nuclear Power Plant (KNPP), whose unit 1 was shut down due to some issues in turbine functioning in September, is expected to resume power generation by the first week of December, the government said on Wednesday.

India has the right to reprocess the spent nuclear fuel (SNF) from the Russian built Kudankulam Nuclear Power Project (KNPP) by a supplementary agreement with Russia, which relieved the builders from the responsibility to take over the discharged SNF as originally envisaged.

Clearing the liability hurdle with Russia, the government is keen to sign the long-pending agreement for Unit III and IV of Kudankulam nuclear plant before its term ends in May and is planning to approach the Election Commission for clearance.

The Nuclear Power Corporation of India (NPCIL) is hoping to carry out a full systems check, technically called hydro test, of its second 1,000 MW atomic power reactor at Kudankulam Nuclear Power Project (KNPP), said a senior official.

A day after an explosion at a village near Kudankulam Nuclear Power Plant here claimed six lives, police formed a team to probe it and stepped up security even as two live bombs were recovered from the area.